Thursday, April 20, 2006

I was the ORIGINAL party animal. I was on TV all the time. My name was known from coast to coast. People would see me walking in the street and yell, "Hey, Spuds! Party on!" as I did my business on a fire hydrant.

You must remember the commercials! There were these hot chickies standing above me, wearing these low-cut spangly dresses, saying "Spuds Mackenzie is the original party animal!" They sang "Go, Spuds, Go, Go Spuds Go!" Then I'd do a dozen beer bongs.

(I didn't have much interest in those girls, though I tried humping one on the leg, and after that, she wouldn't take my phone calls.)

Those were the days. I went to A-list parties, the Super Bowl, and got to sniff all the butts at the Westminster Dog Show. I was on the top of the world. Everybody knew who I was, even kids!

(Speaking of which, I want to set a little matter straight. All those charges that the beer companies used me to market beer to children...come on! I'm a pit bull, for God's sakes! I bite children! So what if they thought I was cute. No kids wanted to drink beer because of me. And if they did, that Bud Light stuff is just piss. It would take a six pack for a 70-pound girl to get a buzz.

Also, I didn't crap in the President's limo.)

Bookfraud, this very strange human who called my agent, said he wanted a blog from someone who we haven't heard from in awhile, and that Vanilla Ice, Corey Feldman, and Tama Janowitz weren't available. Hadn’t heard from me! I was insulted. Spuds hasn’t gone anywhere. He’s just readjusting his career priorities, that's all.

I decided to turn the tables on that dog and beat him at his own game. I looked at "Best American Short Stories" and "The O. Henry Awards" collections from the early 1990s, about the same time I was at the peak of my fame.

Everybody wanted a piece of me!

You know what? I hadn't heard of any of them! Since I'm an illiterate dog, that would make sense. But I had someone read the names to me, and I noticed that some people kept appearing in them: Alice Munro, Joyce Carol Oates, George Saunders.

Then I checked out "Best American Short Stories 2005," and guess who was in it? Alice Munro, Joyce Carol Oates, and George Saunders. But nobody else from the early 1990s, writers who even Bookfraud had to admit he barely recognized.

Then I went way back and check out award-winning writers from the 60s and 70s, and even if you're a English professor, you've never heard of these guys. Forget about it. They're even more forgotten than Joe Camel, that asshole.

These books and writers were considered the best, but nobody's reading them anymore. And if they're still around, those writers aren't publishing many new ones.

I decided to get even more ambitious, and check out the best selling works of fiction of 100 years ago:

1. Coniston, Winston Churchill (An American -- not the British dude who looked like a bulldog) 2. Lady Baltimore, Owen Wister 3. The Fighting Chance, Robert W. Chambers 4. The House of a Thousand Candles, Meredith Nicholson 5. Jane Cable, George Barr McCutcheon 6. The Jungle, Upton Sinclair 7. The Awakening of Helena Ritchie, Margaret Deland 8. The Spoilers, Rex Beach 9. The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton 10. The Wheel of Life, Ellen Glasgow

The human said he'd heard of Edith Wharton and Upton Sinclair, but the rest? You know more about who came in last in the 1973 Kentucky Derby than the rest of them. I’d bet all the territory I’ve marked on my life on it.

Maybe you've heard of "Eloise," a children’s book, and probably Simone de Beauvoir, because she was in love with some famous bug-eyed French dude. And "Peyton Place" got made into some skeevy flick, and someone told me that some celebrity blow job magazine just did a profile on the author.

Know her?

But have you read "The Tribe That Lost Its Head," or maybe "Don't Go Near the Water"? I hear that "Auntie Mame" and "Andersonville" were famed in their time, but what about now?

And have you ever heard of Kenneth Roberts, Nicholas Monsarrat, or Grace Metalious, who sounds like the name of a Christian heavy metal band? Didn't think so.

Like some people's unexplainable preference for Lassie or Rin Tin Tin, I'm sure that these nice humans have some fans to this day. But fame and awards are fleeting, I can tell you that from experience. If you don't the love the work behind being a celebrity, you should get out of it, fast.

It was great being a party animal — the booze, the babes, the steak bones — but those goddamn frogs came along, and everybody suddenly forgot about Spuds!

Bookfraud says the same thing about writing. He's got this pitiful blog to generate what he hopes will be fame and fortune, but he tells me that hasn't materialized. He writes fiction for "fun," though that sounds like a crazy way to spend an afternoon. My idea of a great day is scoring some bitches and hanging out in the dog run.

I don't know why any sane human would become a writer. We all want fame and fortune, even us canines! You'd think that you would pick something better to reach your goals, like bank robbery or gambling.

But I feel for Bookfraud. I really wish I could be famous again, instead having to deal with my issues, one day at a time.